Closure
by JillyW
Summary: Summary: A sort of missing scene from just before the end of ‘Time Squared’ – because I was wondering just exactly what Jesse told Adam…


Notes: Another sort of POV vignette, but it's 'Time Squared' that grabbed my attention this time. Jess seemed to be thoroughly out of sorts all the way through the ep, and I felt the need to investigate what was causing it...  
  
But once I started thinking about it, I discovered what seems to me to be a major plothole that I couldn't really see any way round. 'Cos, as I see it, when Diana took herself and Jess back to just before Adam died, the others didn't go too. So... the Emma, Brennan and Shalimar who turned up outside the room after Jess had taken Ashlocke out weren't the ones who had experienced Adam's death and what happened afterwards. Because in their timeline, Adam didn't die. So Emma didn't have to make the decision not to let Brennan kill young Ashlocke, and wouldn't therefore be able to tell Adam about it later... scratches head Or maybe I'm just going mad...  
  
Anyway, that's just to explain away any departures from canon!  
  
At the risk of getting repetitive, huge thanks to Chya for being there for me to bounce all this off, for her encouragement, and for her help in coming up with an acceptable explanation for the ep's last scene.   
  
  
  
CLOSURE  
By JillyW  
  
  
Finally...  
  
Finally it was there, hanging in the air between them. The question Jesse had been waiting for all evening. It had taken far longer than he'd expected once Adam had announced his intention of accompanying him to see Diana Moller delivered to the safe house himself, but now the wait was over.  
  
He'd spent most of the drive from Sanctuary wondering exactly what form the question would take so he'd know how to answer it, only half listening to Adam's quiet conversation with the girl about the man they both knew so well, but in such different ways. Gabriel Ashlocke. Patient Zero. A man of enormous power but absolutely no concept of the moral responsibility that should accompany it - which kind of ruled him out of the superhero stakes, Jesse thought with a humourless mental laugh. But he was no nearer to working out how best to respond now than he had been when they'd set out.  
  
Emma had wanted to come with them, seeming to feel the need to stay close to Adam, as she had since their leap back forward through time from 1978 to the present – a present that Jesse had been overwhelmingly relieved to find returned to a normality he knew they'd been on the verge of losing forever. But there'd been little point in three of them making the trip, and Diana had seemed unhappy at having someone other than him responsible for getting her where she'd be safe – probably a sort of 'better the devil you know' reaction to what they'd been through, he thought, but which nonetheless gave him a brief surge of pride at having finally won her confidence.   
  
Adam's suggestion that Emma, like Shalimar and Brennan, could do with some rest and time to sift through the events of a day unlike any even their unusual lives had thrown at them before had been acquiesced to reluctantly. But Jesse had seen the shadow in her eyes, an unexplained flinch at seeing them leave which made him wonder if she'd picked up some sort of psionic echo back there of the unthinkable immediate future he'd just prevented, giving her knowledge of it even though she would never actually experience it.  
  
Diana had gone relatively willingly into the family Adam had decided to place her with temporarily until they could help her find a more permanent new life, an indication, perhaps, of her need to be back in a more structured environment given the time she'd spent voluntarily in the psychiatric hospital. Jesse had wondered at the older man's determination to move her straight away rather than letting her stay with them at least overnight, but he guessed it might have something to do with his increasing concern that Ashlocke's desperation to survive might lead him to attempt an assault on Sanctuary itself, despite their security systems.  
  
And then there'd just been the two of them, making the return journey.  
  
With nothing to use as a distraction, Adam had finally allowed himself to dwell on the impossible truth of having been face to face with his younger self, with all the memories and regrets that engendered. He'd been so full of good intentions back then, so sure what he was doing was right, and the temptation to say or do something that would rectify some of the wrongs that had been a result of his actions was enormous. But then he'd thought of all that would then be lost, all the good people who would never have the chance to become what they were, and he'd known that would be unforgivable.  
  
Ashlocke, though, had no such qualms – true to form he'd put his own needs above all, with no thought to the consequences. And Adam knew how close the man had come to succeeding in his plan to change his own future. The murderous intent in the eyes boring into his had been clear, and he could only speculate now at what he might have tried to do to save himself if Jesse hadn't put in his miraculous appearance. He was so used to the sight of the young molecular massing protectively in front of him to deflect some attack or another, though, that he'd barely questioned his arrival at that precise moment, immersing himself instead in gathering his people around him and getting them all out before any more damage could be done to the timeline.   
  
Even back in the present he'd preferred to focus on returning to Sanctuary, then finding somewhere for Diana to stay, somewhere Ashlocke couldn't locate her and use her again.  
  
Now, though, he had no excuses, and the scientist in him demanded to know everything, to understand exactly what had happened, regardless of his emotional side's disinclination to revisit the incident. So, without actually looking at his companion, he broke the car's introspective hush.  
  
"What happened, Jesse? What happened to make you turn up right then?"  
  
Though he'd been expecting the question it still took Jesse oddly by surprise, his eyes shooting sideways to glance at the older man's thoughtful profile before returning to the road ahead. Where to begin, he thought wearily, squinting against the lights of oncoming cars, hands tightening reflexively on the wheel. He let his mind slide back over the hours again – comparatively few, he realised, in real terms – since this whole thing had begun, trying to decide how best to give Adam what he needed to put it all into perspective, move towards some kind of closure.   
  
He could still taste his frustration when Ashlocke had managed to elude him by using his unwillingness to risk innocent lives against him, as well as the self-reproach coming hard on its heels that he hadn't reacted quickly enough to at least try and stay with him. Perhaps if he'd been pushing harder, not let him get so far ahead... or thought to swerve the other way, take evasive action by going over the grass verge so he could keep moving... or even had the guts to attempt something more radical, perhaps phasing himself and the car through the woman and baby buggy in his path, he'd have managed to catch their nemesis, corner him, take him down before he could get to Diana, and the nightmare this day had become would never have happened.  
  
But happen it had, and with each progressive event the nightmare had worsened.  
  
His guilt-filled anger had deepened when he'd arrived at the hospital too late to do anything to prevent Ashlocke escaping or to even back Brennan and Shalimar up, left only to gather up the obviously hostile Diana and report his failure back to Adam. And the girl's continuing refusal to confirm in words that made any real sense what had happened to them, and her resentful niggling as they'd been forced to traipse through the rain to get back to Sanctuary, had done nothing to improve his mood.   
  
He should have expected, though, that she'd be more eager to reveal to Adam what Ashlocke intended – the man in charge rather than the messenger boy, he remembered thinking a little bitterly – and that Adam would ignore his attempt to persuade him not to risk going back, regardless of the unavoidable implications should Ashlocke succeed. But it had still stung at his self-esteem, knowing that there was nothing he could contribute, no way his particular skills or abilities could help his mentor do what he felt he had to do.  
  
But then, he thought, pulling himself up sharply, that wasn't what Adam needed right now, was it? He wouldn't want to hear about his feelings of resentment, impotence, inadequacy at being left behind, abandoned in the now by everyone who mattered to him, able only to watch helplessly as the past – and therefore the present and the future – was changed by unknown events involving those very people, events he could only guess at, with no way of influencing them or exerting any control over their outcome.   
  
Or the swell of loneliness, of sadness, which he'd had to batter into oblivion with the strength of his denial when Diana had told him that things had changed too much, that they were never coming back.   
  
Or the outright fear and foreboding that had assailed him when Sanctuary started to come apart around him and he'd realised what that had to mean, forcing him to make decisions that could either redeem the situation or condemn them all to Ashlocke's view of a perfect world.  
  
Or the grim despair when they'd finally reached Genomex only to find he was once again too late, that what he'd feared most had already happened... and knowing that if he couldn't do something to put it right, Ashlocke would win...  
  
He wouldn't want to hear about that... Would he?  
  
Adam listened to the silence, casting a surreptitious look in Jesse's direction and catching the fleeting emotions pulling at his features in the intermittent fluorescent glare and fade of the streetlights. He hadn't really yet considered what toll his determination to do what he considered was the right thing might have taken on his team. But he remembered Emma's unusual clinginess, and Shalimar and Brennan's slight air of confusion even after he'd given them a necessarily short explanation of what had brought them all to the same place in a time that wasn't their own, and wondered whether these were indications of trouble brewing.   
  
He didn't think the two older mutants would dwell on matters too much – they were both too laid-back in their own ways to let the past bother them to that large an extent. But Jesse and Emma... they were both so vulnerable, both wearing their feelings too near the surface despite their pretence to the contrary. He could tell that something about whatever had happened had affected them, though he wasn't really sure what or why.   
  
And it looked like he was going to have to do some more work to find out.  
  
Jesse heard the slight intake of breath that he just knew meant Adam was about to prompt him for a response and that pushed him to finally find the words he needed, his voice quiet but firm as he said, "Ashlocke killed you, Adam. He murdered you, and the world changed in ways I don't even want to think about now. I couldn't let that happen. You couldn't die." He caught and held Adam's gaze briefly before turning away with a shrug. "So I got Diana to take me back. And I stopped him."   
  
He focussed on the highway unfolding before him again, waiting for the additional questions, the demands for clarification and detail that he was used to enduring during their usual debriefings. But they didn't come. Instead, after a long pause, he heard the rustle of cloth as Adam reached to squeeze his shoulder briefly, followed by the words, delivered as softly as his own, but seeming so much louder as they resonated through his mind, echoing down into his soul.   
  
"Thank you."  
  
And although he knew the questions would come, later, sometime, that the doubts and insecurities would probably return, for now he was just content to bask in the warmth of the knowledge that, in the end, his contribution - his abilities – had made the difference.   
  
  
-o- 


End file.
